The art of customer service: When 'I don't know' Supersedes 'E-G-O'

I work in support of academic services in my place of work. Here, I am linked in both service and supervision of graduate students. I serve those in their academic programs and connect them to the services and resources they need to succeed academically as they move forward in their career path. I supervise those who work at our public service desk, namely the research help desk, in our library.

When working with post-baccalaureate students, it's easy to see how they might believe they know things, and know better than the person standing on the other side if the desk or at the end of a phone connection. Our official supervisor has reviewed the tracking logs and chat reference logs for the past few years to determine the quality of support provided by our graduate student employees. The data analysis shows that the graduate students are more apt to misinform our library users about services rather than refer them or pick up a phone to get the correct information. Deep research questions tend to result in more accurate answers, but don't illustrate the characteristics of a reference interview in chat transcripts.

While working in a unit meeting with colleagues earlier this week, and hearing about services that our library offers, a side comment lead to what I believe is the core of quality service to our library users: It's important to say I don't know, in lieu of relying on one's ego.  What does that mean in practice?

Humans, particularly educated humans are not wired to admit our own shortcomings. While I have not done much research on this, it's definitely a cultural assumption in higher education, particularly in meetings where we talk about instruction and information services for students (and sometimes faculty). We talk about how we connect people to knowledge and then move on toward making frameworks and courses fit that scheme.

When I work with newly hired students in the library, I give them space to tell me what they think about providing service. They have a training module to provide basic information, and we rely on the rubber hitting the road by shadowing students at the desk, we model the way for them, and encourage them to step out of a comfort zone into the open where they can demonstrate what they know about our library and its services. It's telling when I encourage someone to answer the phone, they bravely do, and I learn that they don't know exactly what to say. The script is missing in some ways. When the next time arises, I'll work with the student to ensure she knows how to answer by identifying the full proper name of the service desk, introducing themselves by name, then moving on to ask *how* they can help the caller. It's a small but impactful message to get through as it forms a foundation for face to face, email and chat communication as well.

The challenging part in working with new student employees is letting them try and then helping them see where improvements are needed. That's where training them to encourage themselves and others to 'ask the question' comes into play. Once the question is asked, it's important to know that the student employee will consider what it means, and then determine if the answer they have is full and complete. The most bitter pill for any new employee to swallow is the fact that we don't always know the answer, and then admitting it in a helpful manner. Saying 'I don't know, but I'll find out' is terrifying. The message it conveys is reassurance in most cases. A library user can see that the question they've asked is a good one--someone else shares the need for that particular piece of information or knowledge. And it offers the opportunity for the new employee to learn a thing or two himself.

Where things go south is when the ego wins in the conversation. Ego impedes our ability to open up our professional presence to show our own ignorance. It challenges our human core to become that publicly vulnerable and then co-seek the answer to a question. It's so worth the journey to do it.

As I continue to build relationships with graduate students I serve and supervise, I see those who embrace the 'I don't know' forcing deference to the not so humble ego. Those students more readily make connections with their learning both inside and outside of their curriculum. Those students excel in customer service at the research desk. I firmly believe those students will succeed in their endeavors more readily than counterparts who cannot let the ego slide. Whether those students came to our service desk already equipped with the ability to admit ignorance or learned its humbling but powerful effects while on the job with us, I cannot say. I have no proof, yet I believe there exists an innate ability to explore opportunity to learn. I believe also that taking advantage of the opportunity to recognize what we do not know can also be learned. Allow yourself to deny your ego and find out how 'I don't know' can grow your own knowledge while in service to others.

RDF Part 1: Self exploration on a new concept

At my place of work, I recently joined a grassroots interest group designed to self-education on the topic of RDF or Resource Description Framework. I know zero about this topic, and understand it to be a framework for presenting relational data in ways that can be repurposed readily for web formatting. I could be very wrong about this.

I was approached by one of our group's coordinators after our last meeting, and he encouraged (invited) me to consider giving a presentation to the group. I was stunned. I am not an expert, but having just come off a less on in my online learning course from ALA Classes, in which we divided and conquered on learning new collaborative instructional techniques, I decided today that I could and would do this. Rudimentary. Theoretical knowledge with no practical experience to support the knowledge. But, this is how Bloom's Taxonomy works, so here we go, at the lowest level of learning, I will begin.

From the Springer Encyclopedia of Database Systems (2009), I learned that RDF is, "RDF (Resource Description Framework) is a language for making statements about resources, i.e., for representing metadata. Here, the term resource is intentionally used very broadly in the sense of any entity that can be uniquely identified by a URI (Universal Resource Identifier). This includes traditional web resources (such as web pages or images), as well as physical objects (such as devices) and humans about which the statements are made." I think that may be what I took away from the first discussion group sessions I attended.

I began my search in the library discovery interface using the keywords "introduction to RDF". From the results list, I used the topic filter to isolate records with the topic "resource description framework." I created a RefWorks folder and downloaded some articles. I'll continue researching soon.

Follow up to instruction - an observation

Tuesday morning I did complete my instruction session. I was twenty minutes post session start due to nature exploding in lightning, wind and rain. The storm was beautiful, but I played safe and took a later departure to my building.

The class was larger than I anticipated, yet they were awake and fully engaged. Then I remembered: this is a class of teachers. Their faculty introduced the literature review thoroughly, so I was able to move into demonstration mode right away. I began review of my subject guide and made mention of the RefWorks software. I am interested in ensuring these teachers have all of the services they need to enhance their research experience while on campus and away in their home schools during the academic year. Their research projects result in completion of their capstone in the program as well as result in review and improved services or programs within their schools.

The mention of RW derailed us slightly. I offered another session to their instructors. The time on task is so limited while they are in campus I feel remiss not having reviewed through all of the resources and provided hands on time. These teachers do have my contact information and know I am available for email, phone and f2f consultation.

So my lesson learned is that I need very much to condense the presentation time. Distillation is an art, and I need to work more with my canvas.

Creating the Instruction - Session 1

Tuesday morning I'll join instructors in our Catholic education leadership program. I'm excited at the prospect, happy to provide current primary and secondary teachers and administrators with connections to the wealth of information we have. I'm still a little timid in stepping up as authority. I respect the hands-on authority the teachers have, and remind myself that this is a partnership. I hold knowledge about using our resources and using them well, the teachers hold the content and will fill in the gaps with their knowledge and understanding of the classroom.

I'm in awe of these teachers, who are using appreciative inquiry fundamentals in their action research proposals. Learning to envision, implement, interpret and evaluate programming changes is an exciting place to be. That the home schools for these educators and administrators support their work leaves a smile on my face as I know the schools are doing the right thing by allowing those with their hands in the mix each day to look for continuous improvement and make it happen. I appreciate the hard work they will be doing to make sure the teaching gets done along with the programs and research they are doing in addition to the day-to-day shepherding of developing children through their days of learning.

So as I consider the outcome, the goal for each of these teachers, I must do the same for my own planning.

• Resources outlined? Check.
• Examples readied? Check.
• Plans for a great night of sleep? Check.
• Joyful attitude supported by coffee? Check.
• Commitment to bringing my skills to bear? Check.

Days gone by transform to happy accidents

Dring this week's staff training institute I was often reminded of where I have been in my nearly sixteen years here at MPOW. It has been a long and winding road, and one with few regrets. I began working in academic libraries as an undergraduate and returned as a staff member following a less-than-satisfactory trip through the world of retail management.

I came to MPOW as a result of marrying and needing and wanting a job in proximity to my husband. The first academic library fit I found and matched was here, and after two years in a branch support position I was moved into desktop technology support. I should mention here I lack any sort of formal technology training, or did at the time. I believe that my penchant for troubleshooting and curiosity about how things work contributed to my success as a technical support analyst.

I was fortunate to have arrived where growing into a position was acceptable. I moved again to a client management position. This is a double entendre. I managed the desktop client software for our client-server integrated library system as well as the clients receiving service support from our department. I became known for patience and ability to translate technical information to borderline technophobes or at the very least, technoresisters.

My ability to analyze needs and documentation grew exponentially in this position. I grew a bit burned out though. I had no technology degree, had taken a programming class to see if I could move up in that Direction (it did not interest me), so I did what I should and returned to library school for my Master of Library Science. I was eight years invested in MPOW by this time and not likely to move. librarianship had been a good fit for me so far, and so I applied. I sincerely  thought I would move into Collection Development, but was recruited for an internal job heading up an acquisitions department. Back into management went I.

The work was transformative and worked well for an introduction to technical services and developments in that area. I stayed three and a half years and moved into a more focused job as gifts acquisition librarians. Working with donors who had curated their own collections over time or who had inherited collections from family members touched and opened my heart. I knew we would not acquire all materials and I used my voice and heart to help donors understand our collection needs and space limitations. I talked with them about the need for charitable donations of all kinds, and helped to find other institutions who might be a better match for the onations. I worked with the development staff as well to sharpen policies and procedures that had been honed by tradition and ran close to infringement possibility, in the end I moved on from this position as a result of library reorganization. Looking back, that is a wealth of experience in the course of fifteen years.

I benefit greatly from the knowledge I gained in my current role providing outreach and instruction to graduate students. I am able to think broadly across our library services and technology needs when considering new implementations of service or outreach design. I am happy in this role and privileged to work with dynamic, forward thinking team members.

I encourage professional development and embracing change for anyone who works in a service or outreach role. Our world changes rapidly and the needs of users and ourselves changes too. Aptitude for change, placcing a premium on professional development and finding tools to maintain current and trend awareness is essential to success. Embrace it. Give it a try. You may find things that dont fit, that feel uncomfortable and that are outright wrong for you, and yet you may also have that moment, that moment so fittingly characterized by artist Bob Ross: a happy accident.

Semantic silos. Is that a good thing?

Today was the last day of our week- long staff training institute. The annual programming helps us to sharpen our saws and bring our knowledge about ourselves and our profession to one another. This year each of our library programs (née departments) was asked to design the programming. Today our social sciences, sciences and business program invited our Alexander Street Press representative to join us and talk about the offerings and new platform.

The rep began talking about the ASP semantic searching and philosophy, and in the course of discussing the application and design use the term "semantic silos". Boy and howdy was I concerned. When I think of silos I think of information held captive and separate from users and uses. Yet she went on to talk about the need to use the discipline or collection specific terms and searching. Cross searching the collections is important yet abusing able to narrow and drill down with known, discipline specific terms and indexing is a big part of the power for the product.

As a user of streaming video I am happy to learn the application will be checking my (and my users') bandwidth to ensure that buffering is minimized or elimated based on the actual capability of the network connection.  Selective snipping is also a possibility.

So where does this leave me as an instructor? I envision being able to advocate for the use of the resource with the teachers in the ACE program here on campus. The important piece is making the content availability known to the broad audience of users, and for respecting the useful silos that make searching more productive.

Social media in the workplace

This week I began upping my social media profile. I am not sure what spurred the interest, yet I am concentrating on daily professional and personal blogging. Feels great and let's me record some of my thoughts about libraries and self before the thoughts fade away.

For the Graduate Student Professional Development Team, I am reading a book called Where Good Ideas Come From. I am enjoying the read so far and what I have taken away to date is the need to consciously track one's thoughts. While they may not be joined today they can certainly come together in one's mind over time. Darwin and Freud are cited as prominent examples in the first chapters of the book.

Given the number of simultaneous and convergent projects and initiatives that I have on my plate right now, I have lots of ideas and threads to track. I am loving the creative process involved and only wish I could read more and more quickly. Anyone who can give me tips on speed and comprehension building is welcome to sound off and contribute.

I am also the newly designated Facebook page administrator for MPOW. I welcome any tips and best practices for planning our outreach with this media. Experiences on crafting a plan for message and staying on point for target audience is knowledge I need right now.